Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Little update and a question on harvesting

First a little update on the BG size. You can see below the first one i caught when we bought the place in late Feb and now the majority are this size. Ok, maybe not majority because i have a lot of smaller ones from spawn this summer, but don't catch much of those.





I just introduce 500 1.5-2.5" CNBG last week and i'm hopeful they do well.

I also was reading latest copy of PondBoss Mag. So, if i decide my goal is 1-1.5lb BG and hopefully a little bigger on the CNBG, and not concern myself with the LMB, do i just not harvest the smaller bass at all? And when would i start harvesting, if at all, the smaller BG?

You harvest EVERY bass that is greater than 14" -16" in length, and brush up on how to sex Bluegills. You want to harvest all the females that you catch. If you don't have one now, get a feeding program going. That will really jump start the BG growth.

If you want to dive into the harvest further, get a ruler and a digital scale. Pull up the relative weight chart for BG that is on here, and remove every one that is under 100% RW.

I got lost at the part where you posted very strikingly clear and vivdly colorful pictures! Do you have an amazing camera or do you do post-picture processing with a photo editor? These pictures have exceptional resolution and quality.

Are they hosted on imgur or other site? Or did you upload them as a resized original?

Maybe it is just me but these are beautiful pictures, even the rocks on the ground look like works for art

Ok, that makes sense. I do know how to tell sexes. For the LMB, just that 14-16" slot? Let the bigger ones stay if found? I do have a optimal size chart from American Sportfish. I'll start to do that. Lastly, you say all females huh? Not that i fish it hard so i wont be pulling a dozen out a day or anything. Thanks


Thank you. No touch up or edits. I do have a new phone, the Samsung 23 Ultra. It has great zoom and great quality pics. But i think the fish are what make it pop!!

For bass harvest, harvest EVERY BASS larger than 14"-16". You might have to reduce the size to 12"-14" if the BG aren't growing fast enough.

You want to remove Female BG to help curtail reproduction. Less mouths to feed = more food to go to each remaining mouth.

Harvesting/Feeding questions from this week

I fished the place for a couple hrs this week and what i'm seeing this: I have about a dozen 11-15" bass that roam the feeding area and both feed on pellets and seem to circle all the baby blue gills that hang out there as well. ZERO bigger gills in the feeding area. I do see some mid size ones that seem to wait for the wind to take the feed away from the feeding area and the bass before feeding on the pellets. Now, my BG that i do catch seem healthy and fat, i havent started measuring against the growth chart yet, thats this week.

Some questions - the bass are healthy, fat but are not big enough to eat a 7"+ bg yet. Are the bass scaring off my gills? Should i move the feeder to a steeper bank to try and reduce the feeding opportunity on the baby BG by the bass?

I did harvest a few. I mean, i'd like to leave a few bass but they seem to be bullying the area.

I'll take some measurements this week and report back.

Ok another update. The bass are doing REALLY well, too well i believe. They have become accustom to the texas feeder and are taking advantage of it. I have about 40-50 about the size of the ones below. Some 8-12" but not that many really. The BG are doing well too. Nothing over a 1lb yet, but some close with tons of 5-7inch ones.

My question is this. if i would like to have 5-15 big bass and weed out the rest. Will i ever be able to get 1lb+ gills with those lunkers in the 1.2acre pond? Or, do i just have to get out the ALL 14"+ bass to have any chance for big Gills? below are a couple pics of current gill size and the example LM.



[img]https://i.imgur.com/Acj9vjK.jpg?1[/img]

How big is the pond Toby?

Those are some beautiful fish for sure.

That is a nice bass in your pic, but I don't think that one would be eating your largest BG.

Here is a link to an old thread on your topic.

Pond Boss Thread for Trophy BG

In that thread they liked having the LMB eating pellets. I think if you can throw the largest pellets, then your biggest bass will be gaining weight on pellets rather than on your big BG.

From my readings, it appears that every trophy BG pond also has big bass. I think the reason is that the biggest hurdle to you growing 1#+ BG is competition from all of the other BG that are just a bit smaller than that size. You must have big bass eating lots of the next couple of sizes below your trophy size BG to allow your biggest BG to max out.

[I am NOT an expert, but our actual experts on the forum have not come up with a "perfect" formula. Therefore, I think that means not too many medium and big bass AND not too few medium and big bass.]

If you raise enough healthy BG, then the largest bass cannot knock off all of them.

I have also included a link to a good article on some other ways to improve the size of your largest BGs.

Lusk Article - Growing Giant Bluegills

1.2Ac

Rod - your first link is incomplete. The link to Lusk's article works fine.

I just tried to pull it up, and it says "blank#blocked" in the web address field. Probably "operator error" on my part, but I have never before seen that on a link to a Pond Boss thread.

Pond Boss Thread for Trophy BG

Updated link from my post above.